July 7, 2008

Biography

Skiing

A world traveler, Winslow Eliot lived for several years in Greece, Italy, Spain, and England. She spent a year with her family on a freighter traveling from Greece to Japan. Her travels have taken her to sacred sites around the world, including the caves of Ajanta and Ellora in India, Delphi in Greece, Stonehenge and other sacred stone circles in the West Country of England, the Hawaiian archipelago, and many more places. She has even traveled north of the Arctic Circle on an expedition through Scandinavia, and she spent several months in Japan, visiting Zen gardens and temples.

hawaii-cropEliot’s talent and interests come naturally: She is the heir of a long line of distinguished writers and educators. She is the daughter of Alexander Eliot, former art editor of Time Magazine and the writer Jane Winslow Eliot. Her great-great-grandfather, Charles W. Eliot, was president of Harvard for fifty years and revamped the American college Liberal Arts curriculum.

He was also famous for establishing the “five-foot shelf,” a still-utilized collection of essential books.

IMG_0198Her great-great grandmother, Ada Davenport Kendall was a leading journalist who spent several months in prison for protesting in support of women’s suffrage.

Another ancestor, John Eliot, translated the Bible into Algonquin in the seventeenth century.

Her favorite fiction writer of all time is her grandmother, Ethel Cook Eliot, who wrote children’s books (The House Above the Trees, The Wind Boy), teenage mysteries, and adult novels (Ariel Dances, Green Doors).

Her education included three years at the Overseas School of Rome and then seven years at Michael Hall Waldorf School in Sussex, England.

After graduating from Scripps College in California and the Publishing Procedures Course at Radcliffe, Eliot moved to New York City, where she worked at several publishing houses, including Simon & Schuster and Doubleday, and Time Inc.

She also received her first formal training in the tarot and in astrology, although she had drawn her first tarot cards when she was thirteen years old, and had been offering palm readings since she was a teenager as well.

IMG_0185She later moved to Massachusetts with her husband and two children to become public relations director and humanities teacher at the Great Barrington Rudolf Steiner School and later at the Berkshire Waldorf High School

She taught and worked as the Community Relations Director for the Honolulu Waldorf School in Hawai’i from 2005 to 2007.

An ordained minister in the International Metaphysical Ministry, she has her PhD in Transpersonal Counseling; her doctoral dissertation explores the healing, enlightening, and spiritual aspects of Stillness.

She has her own private practice, and also works as a metaphysical practitioner at Canyon Ranch Spa and Health Resort. She’s a member of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology, which “encourages spiritual democracy; a rigorous inquiry into the multiplicity of techniques, disciplines, and methods for exploring personal spirituality and traditional cultural practices; and recognition of how the sacred is embedded in all experience.”

She is also, or has been in the past, a member of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology, International Metaphysical Ministry, Authors Guild,  PEN, Romance Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Tarot Association, and other organizations that support, encourage, and promote the creative and healing endeavors of writers and clairvoyants everywhere. Currently, she is writing, divining, guiding, and teaching in western Massachusetts.